It’s a story of democratic yearnings and violent shortcomings, traceable not only in the actor’s legendary portrayals of pioneering settler (Drums Along the Mohawk), migrant sharecropper (The Grapes of Wrath), gullible heir (The Lady Eve), and president (Young Mr. Lincoln, Fail-Safe), but also in his own life as the descendant of a Dutch family in pre-colonial New York, and as a witness to watershed events of the 20th century: the Omaha Race Riots of 1919, the war in the Pacific, the civil rights struggle, and the ascendance of another actor, Ronald Reagan, at the climax of the Cold War.

Tracing the entwined, complex trajectories of an actor and his nation in Hollywood movie clips, recorded interviews, and a cross-country pilgrimage to significant landmarks, Alexander Horwath—together with editor Michael Palm and researcher Regina Schlagnitweit—has created a magisterial work of cultural history.

Reviews
"Horwath not only examines everything in the frames he shows us—paying close attention to Fonda’s physical gestures—he constantly reminds us of the history they leave out." – Slant Magazine